For Blue Skies
by Vick Weasley
Summary: "You take everything from me. You can't even help it;" Blair accused her once, "It's who you are". Sometimes Serena skims through Dan's only best seller and thinks that it might be the opposite.


**Gossip Girl doesn't belong to me; this is mindless fun.**

**TITLE: **FOR BLUE SKIES  
**RATING: **M | FOR SEXUAL CONTENT, LANGUAGE AND SOME SUBSTANCE ABUSE.  
**CHARACTERS: **Serena. Nate + Serena. Dan + Serena. Also Blair, Eric, Jonathan, Lily.  
**SUMMARY: **_You take everything from me. You can't even help it_; Blair accused her once. _It's who you are_. Sometimes Serena skims through Dan's only best seller and thinks that it might be the opposite.

* * *

**AUTHOR'S NOTE: **Serena-Centric. **Post-S6** – except Dan **is not** Gossip Girl because that's just stupid. This is not really DS friendly, although I tried not to be too harsh. I barely mention Chuck. Mentions a lot of Dair. That's it, I guess? It's my first Gossip Girl fanfiction and I think I went way over the top but I just really needed my baby to find herself. Oh. English is not my first language and it wasn't beta'd (if anyone wants to let me know). I tried as much as I could; I'm sorry for any mistakes. Title comes from the Strays Don't Sleep song, one of my favorites. Please, read and review (:

* * *

**FOR BLUE SKIES**  
_by Vick_

Dan is quiet most of the time, always staring a brand new document, always trying to gather up some inspiration for his new book. His muse seems to be on vacation, though, since they got married in October.

Serena starts to feel restless around June.

She changes the nail polish color almost every day; ruins all the effort by tapping her nails on hard surfaces; she adopts a virtual dog. Her legs are always moving somehow. She cuts some pair of jeans and tears them apart, making some new shorts that some would say a newly-wed should not be wearing. She lets her hair down and ties it up too many times to count.

She thinks it might be the summer approaching – the season talks to the depths of her soul, the warm sun against her skin makes her feel like going wherever and deciding everything along the way,meeting all kinds of people, having all kinds of lovers, clubbing in Japan, skiing in Chile.

She teases her husband with some ice on the back of his neck in one particularly warm evening, and while he smiles and says he's trying to focus, she tells him that they have to catch a plane in a couple of days; Santiago seems a good place to find some inspiration.

_We just got back from our honeymoon. I have to publish something before summer starts. _It's what he tells her when he says he's absolutely not going. She pouts into a kiss; he keeps serious and doesn't kiss her back. _Some of have to work for a living, you know._

It's the first time she feels a knot in her stomach. It's still there until the wind starts to get chilly again, and she's done nothing besides loving him; gone nowhere besides the places he wanted to go; seen nothing besides the smile on his face before kissing her lips.

It should be enough.

**##**

The test accuses her pregnant in November.

She freaks out in the bathroom; leaves the water running so Dan won't hear her sobs. She doesn't look into the mirror. She can't be… she doesn't want to be, she doesn't want a baby, not now, she's not sure if even ever. She was Lily's daughter, for God's sake, what did she's ever learned about being a mom?

A part of her tells her _it's okay_. She's not a reckless teenager; she's a married twenty-six year old woman that can raise a baby. Besides, Dan would be so happy. He would smile the brightest, maybe he'd find something to write about; he would kiss her stomach and tell her how much he has ever, ever, ever, ever loved her (except for the time when he didn't). _You can make it if he's with you_, it says.

She tries to calm down while pretending the running water is also blocking what the other part of her is saying.

**##**

Serena doesn't go to the doctor, doesn't give up on drinking, doesn't feel like eating properly and is not even sure that there _is _something inside of her. She finds a joint in Dan's stuff, something old that smells like Nate somehow (actually, she's sure that it's his way of rolling) lights it up in the terrace while her husband doesn't get home.

_Why are you killing Dan's baby? _it's the question that stays.

She's all sorts of giggling when Dan arrives and starts kissing her neck. She thinks of telling that she's pregnant, God, they're gonna have a baby, but he would smell her breath and be disappointed, so, so, so disappointed, and he'd stop kissing her like this, and he'd not be smiling into her lips while she babbles nonsense.

She watches him sleep for a while; heavy breathing, like he's always tired from something, small dark circles under his eyes. She'd want their baby to have his jawline and his nose, and she loves him so much, always has, always will. She can do this for him.

She goes to the doctor before telling him anything, just to share her extravagances, to check on the baby's health. The doctor asks a blood test to see the levels of alcohol or drugs, but it comes clean. Way too clean.

There was no baby at all.

**##**

There's a little kid with curly brown hair and big blue eyes. She's not sure if it's a boy or a girl, but she hates it, she hates the way it's looking at her, and it makes her so angry that all she can say is _go away, go the fuck away, I don't want you, _and then her William is there, in their doormat, hugging her and smelling like Yves-Saint-Lorient cologne.

_Daddy is going to take a really long trip, sweetheart._

She suffocates with the guilt and it wakes her up, the heaviest sensation down her stomach.

_It didn't exist._ She tries to be reasonable, _it never existed._

_(It doesn't change the fact that you didn't want it, sweetheart, _something tells her back. _It doesn't change that all you feel is relief._)

**##**

Dan never gets to know that she didn't want their non-existent baby, but Serena thinks she needs to make it up for him anyway.

She tries to cook them dinner with tasty French wine and she buys lacey lingerie; she lights up candles all around the loft. She recreates the fake snow from their first time on Christmas Eve, she kisses him all the time, his mouth and face and neck, even his hands.

He doesn't notice there's something wrong, doesn't notice the nightmares or the times she cries herself to sleep, and she wonders why it upsets her, if it's exactly working like she planned, if he still sees her as all he's ever wanted.

**##**

In their freshmen year, Chuck told her she wasn't the type of girl that would get married and have kids, spend eternity with a guy. She remembers feeling very offended by this and asking him why the fuck would he think that. She wasn't a slut; she was just young, uneasy. Just because she liked – loved – to party and have sex it didn't mean that she'd never want to settle down, never want to have a family.

"I just need to find the right guy", she'd tell him in the occasion, even if a small part of her believed she and Chuck would be doing some lines in the back of the church of Blair and Nate's wedding.

"It's not the guy, babe. It's you. We both know that in everything you do, it's just a matter of time before you get bored."

**##**

Dan proved him wrong. Dan was the right guy. Nice and sweet, handsome, romantic, gave her the calm, steady life that a girl was supposed to want. He had even given the rollercoaster sensation of heartbreaking/fixing that everyone searches for in a relationship. He had given her his everything; he had looked at her like no one had ever done and he loved her despite all the fuck ups they had been through.

And for that she chose him; and loved him, always had, always would. He was the one that allowed the rest of the world see that she could stop. That she could have the future of every other little daddy's girl, even if her daddy left her before she could understand what missing someone was.

**##**

She misses Blair.

They like to pretend it's all the same, try to bond over stilettos and yogurt, to have breakfast somewhere between Brooklyn and the Upper East Side, but it just feels fake, it _is _fake, it has been since she took Nate's virginity and Blair thought it was a fair trade to take Dan's heart. Deep inside, she knows that their friendship is irreparable, just like she knows she's never wanted a baby.

She comes home after their shopping session with some bags, clothes Dan would like her to wear, lacey tights and overcoats. She feels miserable but pretends not to when saying hello; he asks her who she went out with, even though he knows the answer.

_Blair, _she says nonetheless, maybe to watch the reaction on his face when hearing her name out loud.

It is as blank as the first chapter of his new book.

**##**

_You take everything from me. _

_You can't even help it_; Blair accused her once. _It's who you are_.

Sometimes Serena skims through Dan's only best seller and thinks that it might be the opposite.

**##**

She doesn't know why she feels so bad whenever Dan and Blair are around each other (even if it's only once a year, in Lily's birthday). It shouldn't matter. It has been years. It was pure fiction. It was an experiment gone wrong.

Henry existed. Henry was exactly like his father and Blair loved him – _them _– so much it consumed her. There was nothing left for anyone else.

It shouldn't matter that they can still laugh about jokes that no one understands or talk about films that need to be watched with subtitles, it shouldn't matter that there is always a lingering smile in his face while they were speaking. It shouldn't matter that they still have a (real) connection.

(_he was my right guy. you were not allowed to be his right girl_, she could hear herself saying, if they were still seventeen in a kingdom of steps and headbands.)

**##**

"Do you wanna have a baby?" she asks him later that night, just because he's staring too much at the ceiling and she knows he's thinking about the alternative ending to a story that was never told.

"Not now", he kisses her sweetly when he answers, getting up and going to the living room to check something on his e-mail.

The sound of his typing echoes through the loft and she can't help but feel her heart break yet again because of something that would never, ever go away.

**##**

Serena starts to feel restless around June.

She turns on his laptop when she can't take it anymore.

There _are_ stories. Short pieces, and then novel-length ones, stories about a girl with a broken smile, of a princess that was trapped in her castle, her ivory skin and raven hair glowing in the bright moonlight, of a woman that lost the meaning of life and finds it again in an old lover, who leaves everything behind just to her mere wish.

**##**

Dan kisses her neck and her bare shoulder. It's enough to make her cry.

"W… What's wrong?" he asks, turning her to him, leaning over an elbow to look at her face. He looks worried, running his thumb on her cheek to wipe her tears away; she sobs uncontrollably until he holds her close against his chest. "Serena…"

"I read your stories" she manages to blurt between her sobs, face pressed to his skin, feeling as small and vulnerable as she was back when nobody had ever looked at her the way he'd done. She feels him pull away a bit and it makes her cling to him even more. "I'm so sorry" she needs to tell him.

He presses a kiss in the side of her head and breathes in deeply.

"I don't know what to say to you" comes out of his mouth after thirty seconds of scrutiny, her sobs getting weaker as his heartbeats got stronger.

It seems he's always out of words when it's not about Blair.

**##**

The song that comes on the radio when she's leaving the supermarket makes her think about Nate. They danced it on the only Valentine's Day they spent together as a couple, drunk as fuck in a random nightclub, his leg between hers and his greatest smile against her neck, one hand around her waist, just a little bit lower, and the other one holding yet another glass, as they moved not so in sync with _que'est que c'est? fa fa fa fa fa fa fa fa far better._

She laughs a bit while mumbling the song; and _run run run run run run away _hits her in the stomach as she does a completely forbidden conversion and takes the way out to the I-95-S and it's an almost five hour ride to Washington, DC., but she's not tired at all when she pulls over in front of Nate's building and tells him over the intercom that she needs to pee, for God's sake.

**##**

She decides to cook the pasta she bought back in NYC; makes the sauce with the not-so-fresh tomatoes and black olives. In her home, the one with her husband and his stories about her best friend, they have a lot of cooking books, especially Italian, all Dan's courtesy.

Nate – Nathaniel Archibald, founder partner of The Spectator, soon to be congress man, sixth place in the Top 10 Bachelors of the Year – keeps staring at her awkwardly on the other side of the counter, his wrinkled blue shirt matching the pale blue on the kitchen walls, pale blue circles under his pale blue eyes, the same way he kept staring at her during classes when she came back after boarding school, like there's something he wants to say.

"Psycho Killer, really?" he asks after they're almost done with the second bottle of red wine; leaning against the kitchen counter just across the sink she was leaning on; his eyes wandering down the floor for a second. "Wow."

"That was a pretty good Valentine's Day", she smirks, drinking just a little bit more, trying not to think about red dresses and all the other fourteens of February that went wrong. It's easy when her body is soft like that. "Gosh, why are we always drunk?"

He laughs. It's refreshing and it feels good on her stomach, because he's choosing to ignore the fact that they don't see each other since her wedding and that she appeared in DC out of nowhere with no good excuse; because he's not asking questions or demanding answers. "I'm not drunk," she thinks he lies, "Are you drunk?"

There's space for one person to come between them. Nate's place is quite small considering all the money he managed to make in the past years, but it looks like him, it smells like him, it's sort of navy themed and a bit messy and she likes it. "I found one of your joints the other day", she bats her eyelashes; flirts with him God knows why.

"Oh. Did you light it?"

Nate places his empty wine glass in the counter.

And she's an idiot, so she kisses him.

**##**

His mouth is hungry, his tongue twirling against hers in that pattern that is so familiar, that fits so right. She melts in his arms when his right hand gets inside her hair, pulling a little bit, making her lose herself in the motion of his lips.

He says something that doesn't mean anything or that means too much when they break the kiss just so her top can come out, but she presses her mouth to his again, without giving time to think about all the ways this was wrong (again). Nate reaches down, grabbing her legs and placing her up the counter, kissing every part of her neck, breathing heavily while she opens his shirt unbelievably fast.

When he gets inside her for the first time in so many years there's an unexplainable hunger in the way he thrusts his hips against hers, like it was the only thing that could keep him alive. _Baby, Please _he keeps on whispering and his rough voice makes her come without warning, digging her nails in his shoulder, crying out _God _and _Nate _almost all together; he flinches to contain himself and slows down and kisses her mouth again, the urgent kiss he'd always given her, like he didn't know if it would be the last, and they keep on kissing until she comes again, and he follows her with her name against her ear.

**##**

The rising sun paints the room in soft, warm colors. Nate's deeply asleep when she starts to get dressed slowly, the last night taking its toll on her aching body. She kisses the side of his head and breathes in deeply the scent of his hair, feeling her eyes fill up with tears of a fucking _deja-vù_.

**##**

"You got me worried sick, Serena," Dan's voice is way too high pitched as he paces back and forth through the living room. "Why couldn't you just call me? I've been looking for you all night."

She stays in her corner, hands tangled together, and she's just a coward when she says she's sorry for not calling. Her heart is a tiny bloody-fist right now, struggling to keep on beating. The guilt is making her sick on her stomach. Or maybe it's the fact she hasn't eaten anything all day.

"Will you tell me where you were?" he tries.

Serena wonders. Maybe telling Dan what happened last night would bring him to reality. Would shake his world a little bit, would make him feel _anger _and _jealousy _and maybe, just maybe, he would decide that fighting for her was worth something. Maybe telling Dan that she cheated on him would _inspire him_.

"Will you tell me how if you're still in love with Blair?" it's what she asks.

**##**

It takes her two whole weeks to gather up the courage to say something.

_I'm sorry_; she types before collapsing in tears to the floor, his drawers and bookshelves and space in the closet, everything empty. _I'm so sorry_, she types again and presses send. She has been there before, sending the same text to two completely different people that she loved in completely different ways.

Dan takes sixteen hours text her back: _so am I._

Nate takes ten minutes: _I know, baby._

**##**

It's like a joke from the fucking destiny; could be called karma, or something, but the divorce papers arrive on October 8th. She signs them with her single name, _Serena van der Woodsen, _no Humphrey, feeling so tired and understanding of her mother now more than ever.

She didn't want to understand Lily. She hates Lily. But there she was, on the same night, crying in her mother's arms for the first time since she was seventeen years old.

"You'll find someone that loves you unconditionally, sweetheart", Lily runs her fingers through her golden hair and promises that there will be someone out there, waiting for her. But between Lexapro down her throat with vodka, Claus and Klaus, William again, and again, and getting divorced with Rufus only to be sleeping with him like a fucking teenager, what does she know about unconditional love?

**##**

Blair tries; Lord knows, she tries so hard, with chocolate, sad movies, happy movies and Henry and alcohol, _you were made for each other _and _I always hated him anyway,_ but Serena shuts her out without even intending.

_It's your fucking fault, _she could say, _you took everything from me,_ but she doesn't. She just smiles sadly and breathes in deeply and tells Blair that she needs time to understand what happened and that she'll come around when she's ready to talk.

(they don't really speak for the next six months)

**##**

Nate calls her in the same night there's a picture of newly-single Dan Humphrey attending some snob fest cultural shit cocktail hosted by Blair Bass. They stay quiet for a while after_ hey, how you're holding on? _and _fine_, the invitation Blair sent her still lying untouched over the kitchen counter.

He's not supposed to care. He's supposed to be angry and to scream and to tell her to get the fuck out of the world for leaving him alone for the second time. He's supposed to understand that every time they fuck when they're not supposed to something dies around her. It might as well kill _her _one day. And he just keeps on breathing and talking like she was something precious and worthy.

"If… I'll be in New York for two weeks, if you need something."

**##**

Nate traces the outline of her body with his fingertips. He touches her gently, like she's made of glass. Like she's something fragile, something to be protected. Something to spend time on. He touches her like he was writing a book.

She looks at him looking at her, deep blue eyes following the trace of his fingers in her waist, her hips, then up again to her arms. She hates herself for allowing him to love her so much. He's such a good guy and she thinks she'll never be able to give him the chances he asked for.

Serena rests her hand against his chest, naked chest, naked hand, no ring, no promises left, no chances given, and somehow a tear falls from her lids.

He holds her hand in his.

"I know you did this because you're hurt", he begins quietly, still touching her, still not looking her straight in the eye.

She doesn't try to explain. They're not sixteen anymore, and they were never good with words, anyway. It's not their thing.

"I'm…" he continues, still very careful "You know I would do anything for you, right? That I'd move mountains to see you happy."

"Don't", she says before even thinking it. He looks up at her; it's clear that he wasn't expecting her to be crying. "I mean… I know. Thank you."

"But I can't… I can't, you know? _This_. All the time. It's not right."

She sighs, feeling tired, _feeling_. She didn't want to feel anything. She signed up for sex because it should make her numb. It's not working.

Serena shifts in the bed, way too naked not to be vulnerable. And Nate's so wide, so strong, his arms around her feel so safe, even though his mouth is saying he's not supposed to do this.

She thinks of what he's never been able to tell her out loud.

It scares her a little, to be honest.

"Why not?", she asks. It's not like she was planning on _this_, _all the time_, anyway.

"I… I should have told you earlier… I was meaning to tell you when you showed up in Washington but then… Well. I have a girlfriend."

Of course he had a girlfriend. Nate's always had a girlfriend.

Words weren't their thing: cheating was. Serena imagines the girl waiting back in Washington; pretty, petite, with a wide world smile and a van der Bilt seal of approval; a Blair Waldorf-_esque_ blonde with a little craziness in the tip of her tongue.

She wanted to feel as jealous as she always felt of Dan and Blair's minimal interactions, but there was one of the things about Nate: he belonged to her in a way that neither Blair nor Dan (with a ring around his fingers, professing vows in a church) never did. And that made everything okay.

"It's okay", she kisses his cheek.

_If we're ever gonna have a real chance, this is the only way._

Nate kisses her, full body against hers, tongue sliding into her mouth, forever unable to make up his mind.

**##**

For the first time, he's the one who's not there in the morning.

**##**

The bags are packed in the middle of the living room. She's lightened a cigarette – the first in _years_, honestly – because she didn't know what else to do with her hands. She feels tears in her eyes and calls Eric before having a panic attack.

He knows exactly what she's afraid of.

"You're not mom, Serena."

"But isn't this what _she _did? Got divorced, slept around, packed her bags, left everyone that could possibly care?"

"The big difference is that you don't have two small children that need you. It's just you, S. You're allowed to do something about yourself."

She falls down on the couch crying. She just can't fucking stop crying lately and it's annoying. She feels weak, stomach hurting, cigarette falling from her fingers, ashes staining her carpet.

Eric's voice breaks through twenty seconds later.

"Why don't you come here? Jenny's not around, London is fun, we can drink a lot, and it's rainy, you won't burn your ass in a five star resort like all the divorcées from the Upper East Side do."

"I actually live in Brooklyn now", she sniffs, smiling sadly.

**##**

Eric's friends are all his age.

They want to go out – it's freezing and raining and she swears she doesn't even know what _going out _means anymore, she's _changed._

They all roll their eyes, unimpressed with the redemption of Serena van der Woodsen. "_I'm old and tired", _they give zero fucks about her lame excuses. _"I'm a divorcée for God's sake"_, is the last one she tries to give.

Jonathan forces her to take off her stilettos and change them for flat boots; Eric makes her wear some things from Jenny's room – a denim vest, a whole lot of accessories, red lipstick – and they all end up in the underground heading to the Marble Arch Station, sipping beer from the bottle, laughing out loud about nothing.

All the trees are leafless. Eric kisses her cheek all of sudden, slightly giggly, and his nose is cold and red; she kisses it and she calls him Rudolph the Reindeer, just like she used to did when they were little.

In the pub, she teaches everyone how to drink Jägerbombs and laughs out loud. It's just the alcohol, but it's also Eric kissing Jonathan so freely and having no need to disguise that ugly scar in his wrist; it's also her feet on the ground that feel strangely nice.

**##**

Serena texts Blair when she's drunk enough to think she won't regret it. _I love you_, it says.

She thinks she might cry after it's sent. But she doesn't. She breathes in the cold air, exhales after a while, and thinks of how much truth is left in that statement.

Blair was the first person she ever loved, and probably the first to love her back. She would lend her colorful plastic headbands and she had dimples when she smiled. They would share everything for a while; clothes, make-up, shoes, even underwear.

Serena grew taller, her feet got bigger; so did her breasts and list of stepfathers. Her hair got way too wild for headbands, her legs way too long for white tights with tiny bows. Blair didn't make the men turn around, but she was everything Serena ever wanted to be. She had a father – and then two fathers – and a (crazy) mom that would stay home if she was sick; she was, with no pretense, with no effort, the right girl; she had _a family_ and a perfect smile that could disguise everything that was broken inside.

Serena could never be able to hold whatever she felt down. She could never be able to restrain her feelings or not to act on them. She loved fiercely, easily, quickly, whatever she felt came and went very fast, or it just lasted so long it would hurt her forever.

It was so easy for Blair just to... Be what she was entitled to. No wild-child bullshit. No girl-next-door title waiting to be claimed.

If Serena were Dan – or Nate, or Chuck, or any of them, really – she would definitely choose Blair over herself. She already did, most of the time.

The phone is still on her hands when it vibrates. Serena throws it in her bag without looking, just wanting not to be disappointed with the answer. _I love you too_ wouldn't be enough, and she's not quite sure what would.

**##**

Eric touches her hair and kisses her forehead every day before going to class. She's always awake, but pretends she isn't, just so he won't stop doing it. It's one of the nicest parts of the day.

Jonathan leaves for college later – he prepares some toast and black coffee for breakfast still in pajamas, they make fun of whatever's on the news and Serena tiptoes through the apartment, wearing calf-high socks and jumpers.

Jenny is gonna spend one more week in Paris, so Serena decides to spend one more week in London. It becomes a pattern until all of sudden the streets are wet and frozen, reflecting Christmas lights.

Serena helps them decorate the apartment for the holidays. She's really a shitty decorator though – the lights she buys are all different colors, the tree is way too big for the small living room, and she just throws all the adornments together in no order at all. They all have a good laugh though, drinking the scotch Chuck sent his half-brother as a present, having to squeeze in a corner that's not over-occupied with Christmas-y things.

That living room would be Blair's worst nightmare. She could never survive that mess.

Serena kind of loves it.

**##**

In the 23rd, Jonathan takes her to the roof. They're still drinking the never ending bottle of scotch. They light up a joint. Eric's running late and he's very against drugs (no surprise) so he asks her to keep this as a secret. Serena thinks about the last time she smoked up, and how bad she felt for not giving a shit about Dan's baby.

_It didn't exist_, she tells herself every once in a while, but doesn't feel anything. Not much more than what she felt earlier.

If they're sharing secrets now, she might as well just start.

"I always thought Dan put me on a pedestal. That he expected so much from me he couldn't quite understand who I was. So I thought I should change for him. And so I did. And I expected him to love that."

Jonathan asks her what went wrong.

She thinks of the last Christmas, how they made love in the living room floor, how she whispered how much she loved him and he kept his eyes closed, how she touched his curly hair until he fell asleep, hand hanging loosely around her waist, and how tight her throat felt around him most of the time.

He was supposed to be her right guy. He was supposed to look at her like no one else had ever. He was supposed to love her until their dying day. He needed to _turn off _his feelings for Blair because he was supposed to do that for her. He was _supposed_ to.

"I think it was me who put him on a pedestal."

**##**

Serena spends Christmas Eve curled up in one of Jonathan sweaters, wearing way too much make up around her eyes. She's half drunk and can hear soft moans through the bedroom walls, which means that her little brother is having the time of his life. She laughs through her nose, wondering how many times Eric had to witness this kind of thing, and decides to pour a little more wine on her glass.

She calls him because she misses him.

He answers in the third tone. It's loud wherever he is – so he asks for a second before going to a quieter place. She can imagine him with one hand on the phone and the other blocking his ear, she can imagine him worried as fuck, wondering if anything bad has happened to her, and she can imagine that his heart is racing a little bit, just like it always did. She bites her lower lip, hating herself for doing this, all of sudden, and not feeling an ounce of regret at the same time.

"Hey, here's better, hey, can you hear me?"

"Yeah. Hey."

"Hey. Hey!"

She smiles because she knows he did too. "I… I'm really sorry I called after the way we left things, but Jonathan and Eric are having a sexual rendezvous in the other room and I really thought I needed some distraction from this fact."

He chuckles, probably leans himself against a wall or something, probably wears a structured suit and a nice tie, his hair perfectly combed. "I guess I'm glad gay sex makes you think about me?"

She smiles, wants to ask _why are you so nice?_. If they swapped places, she would hate him. She would never be able to forgive him if he did to her what she did to him most of the time. "I'm just wearing way too much eyeliner. I'm starting to look like Jenny. You should see me."

"Instead I'm looking at drunken politicians" he jokes, probably a bit drunk himself. She wonders if Tripp's there, pretending to be happy with Maureen. She wonders if he's seen Dan lately. If he has spoken to Blair or Chuck or Henry. If his grandfather is proud of him. If he's proud of himself. "How's London?"

"Wet and frozen", she smiles softly, sips more wine. She wants to ask about his girlfriend, but can't quite find the courage to do it. He wouldn't mind, he would just answer her, but it would bring heaviness into it and it had been a while since she felt so light. "I'm faking my accent, partying like a teenager, wearing too much kohl, but my hair looks strangely awesome."

"Sounds tempting", he says quietly.

"You should buy a ticket" she teases him, like the idiot she was in his kitchen when she kissed him.

"Gay sex must be really rough to get you asking me this", he answers playfully. Serena knows he won't do it – there are responsibilities and he has _so many jobs_ and he made things pretty clear when he left her alone the last night they spent together – but there's a small part of her that wants him too. That wants someone to drop everything for her; that _needs_ this. "Listen, S., I gotta go, okay? But I'm really glad you called me."

She doesn't know why she feels a bit disappointed. "Sure, I'm sorry, it's just… I mean, Christmas and you know. Merry Christmas, Natie."

"Merry Christmas, baby."

**##**

Serena starts to feel restless as soon as Christmas is over.

Eric tells her she can stay as long as she wants and Jonathan treats her with baked goodies and so many hugs that she agrees to spend New Year's, but books the flight online for January 4th. She's unsure of her destination. It's just _so cold_ everywhere and all she really needs is sunshine.

She decides on the south part of the world – still irresolute if east or west. Sydney was so far away but she'd never really been there and there was also Beijing where no one else would ever recognize her but she would always have Rio, she was _never_, not once, unhappy there.

Thirty minutes later, she chooses Bangkok, because a commercial on TV made her crave spicy food. She bites her lip to contain a smile, feeling strangely satisfied with her irresponsibility.

**##**

It's the last time she's ever wearing eyeliner – she tells herself looking at the smudged makeup around her eyelids. She's so awfully late to the party and everything had to go wrong. She removes one side of her eye makeup, sighing frustrated at the fact she was becoming a raccoon by option. She's not even fully dressed yet and her hair is still in a messy bun and there's no way she'll ever be able to make it before the clock strikes midnight. The last thing she needed was to be alone in _that_ New Year's Eve, it was supposed to be her turning point, why did everything need to go wrong for her, why was she so tired, she was here to _heal_, she was…

The bell rings and she's sure it's Eric coming to pick her up that she just opens the door, completely unaware she looks like chaos, and starts apologizing immediately because it was all the fucking eyeliner's fault and –

It's Nate.

He's wearing a grey beanie and his face is red from the cold, but his eyes are the bluest thing she's ever seen and she thinks she's gonna cry. She's pretty sure she's gonna cry. Her heart is resumed into a small pound of beating flesh and she's sure that she has never ever been so caught off guard in her life. It's written all over his face that he has never seen her like this before.

_Nobody ever looked at me the way you just did._

She wishes he would say something first because her throat is in no conditions of pronouncing a single syllable. He must sense that, because he takes a step inside the flat like he was invited and left his backpack on the floor, getting way too much close for someone who was clearly just a vision.

"Your hair looks awful, S. You shouldn't have lied to me."

She wants to ask him why is he even there (she invited him. She did. But he had a girlfriend and a life and family and he needed to stop, _just stop being so nice_). But he wraps his arms around her carefully like he would do when they were eleven or twelve and he would hold her like he never held Blair and smells exactly like back then. So she closes her eyes and lets some tears fuck up what was left of the eyeliner.

(but those tears weren't for Dan. or for Blair, or for her mom, by all means. they were just _hers_. they didn't belong to anyone else. and they were the last she would share for a while.)

**##**

When the clock strikes midnight, she's tucked into his arms and it's so nice and warm, she doesn't even notice it. His beanie is on the floor and his hair is as messy as hers, but they are fully clothed, because for once she didn't feel the need to hump his bones out. Serena texts Eric to tell him she's staying in – _don't worry, I've got company _– and Nate makes some tea, joking about how British that was. He kisses her forehead more than once and jokes about gay sex and all the silly things only he would joke about.

They listen to the fireworks and she looks up and kisses his nose; she can say it takes him an enormous amount of control not to kiss her lips. He allows his nose to touch hers though, and she could count all his eyelashes if she could.

He asks first, his warm hand going down her arm, reaching her wrist and her hand.

"Do you miss him?"

She takes a deep breath, slightly pulling her face away from his. She would always miss Dan. She would always miss the boy who wrote stories about her and who made her feel like she was good at something. That she wasn't just a cheater and a murderer. She would always miss the way he made her feel and in all he made her believe. She would always miss being his first girlfriend and him being her first boyfriend and all the butterflies in her stomach.

She would also miss Dan as her friend, as a confident, as someone she could count on if she needed something. As someone who would try to understand her flaws even if he didn't agree with her. As someone who looked her in the eye and said he wasn't wrong to believe in her. She would miss his cooking and the way his jawline felt when she kissed it, and she would miss the look on his face when he was really focused on his writing.

But she didn't miss the agony and the unnerving and the weakness. She didn't miss how horrible it was to know that he would never write stories about her again and how he never made her feel like she was good at something anymore. And she didn't miss how she believed less and less while being with him. And she wouldn't take him back. She's sure of that now.

"Like I miss my father, I guess", it's what she manages to tell Nate, looking at his blue eyes.

And the fact that he understands what she means makes her feel safe like never before.

**##**

Eric is trying so hard not to judge or disapprove, but it's in his eyes following Nate through the apartment the day after. Jonathan pokes him with his elbow and Serena smiles at the scene. She promises her brother that she and Nate didn't have sex – well, at least not _this time_ – and he's there because he was the greatest friend someone could ever ask for.

The four of them go sightseeing as if they never been to London before. It's so cold Serena steals Nate's beanie and they take silly pictures of Eric with hot chocolate foam in his nose and of Nate trying to fit the Clock Tower between his thumb and his index finger. He buys her an UK flag magnet as a Christmas gift.

They watch the Changing of the Guard in the Buckingham Palace and Jonathan can't stop giggling of the tourists almost stabbing themselves for a good place. They walk through St. James' Park after that, and Eric and Jonathan are holding hands and a few steps ahead when she finally gathers the courage to ask Nate what she's wanted to ask since Christmas.

"Doesn't Washington need you right now?", she touches his elbow with hers, not daring to take her hands off her pockets. The tip of his nose is red and it really reminds her of how cold it was when they spent half a year living in the happy bubble of their brief relationship.

"Nah. Washington can wait. Someone had to save you from all this pornography", he points his chin to Eric stealing a peck from Jonathan's lips. "Besides, it's really nice to spend time with you", she can't help but look at him and think about the other times they spent together before this one. "_Really_ spend time with you, I mean", he reads her mind. She grins.

"How does the girlfriend feel about this?"

He gives her the smile he gives her from time to time, soft and even a bit sad, like he's accepting some kind of condition or obeying some recurrent rule and Serena doesn't need to ask anything anymore.

**##**

Nate is in the shower while she packs her bags. He is leaving on the 6th because he didn't know she had plans to go to Bangkok, and even though the thought crossed her mind, she decides she won't change a single thing. But she also decides to give him something since he gave her everything and joins him under the hot water.

He slides his hand inside her damp hair when she kisses him, trying not to let the surprise take him, trying to savor the moment as much as he could. Serena opens her mouth and slides her tongue against his, and even though his ready for her in a minute, he takes his time to slip his hands slowly against her wet body, first neck and shoulders and her breasts, taking a nipple between his lips, two fingers down to her center, and teeth against her shoulders and bottom lip.

Serena touches him slowly, arches against him and moans softly, feels his heat and the pulse of his veins against her hand, like he would burst in a second if he wasn't so good at this. And he was, he reminds her every time of why, as he looks at her while reaching for the back of her tights and pressing her against the moist wall, his head touching her entrance, making her ask for it, to beg for it.

She presses her nails in his back when he finally gets inside her, so slow, _so slow_, the good kind of slow. The memory makes her smile against his ear and he kisses her neck, allowing her to put one foot in the ground, raising her other leg to give him more space, his parted mouth an inch away from hers.

He turns her around, bites her earlobe and gets inside her one more time, pulls her hair a bit and slides his tongue inside her mouth, thrusting inside her with more strength, moaning roughly against her mouth. She comes with his name on her lips and then again when they switch positions one more time; and a third time when he finally explodes inside her, holding her face in one of his hands, his bluest eyes of wet eyelashes opened to catch the look on her face.

**##**

Nate shampoos her hair and kisses her neck softly, kisses every small bruise his teeth made, smells every ounce of skin that covers her collarbones. He smiles and the water drops from the tip of his nose and she touches his chest and counts the small freckles on his shoulders while he undoes the knots in her hair with conditioner.

"I love you", he whispers, traces down her spine and rests his hand in her waist. She looks up at him. The water is getting a little bit colder and their fingertips are wrinkled. She can also hear a dog barking somewhere in the neighborhood and can't quite understand why she paid attention to that.

It's the first time Nate ever says it – present tense, completely sober, with absolutely nothing but history between them. She feels her heart race way too much. A part of her thinks he's _years_ late – he could have looked her in the eye in front of a fireplace and told her that instead of nodding when she opened up her heart, and he could have said it one million times when they woke up together or were doing nothing, or he could have given her a list of _why he loved her so much._ A part of her really hates him for being Blair's _property_ for so many years, when she wanted him more than anything and he kept saying these three words to her best friend without meaning it. A part of her wants to kill him for asking her to stay time after time when he knew she couldn't.

He doesn't mind that she flinched – he just leans his forehead against hers and touches her face with both hands and keeps on whispering it like a mantra. "I love you. I love you. I love you."

A part of her hates him for _using _that moment for this. For taking advantage of the fact that she decided to have sex with him because she just wanted it so much and he wanted it so much that she needed to. A part of her hates him for being _so fucking nice_ when he should have cut her out of his life the moment she walked away from him.

"So much. I love you so much. I love…"

A part of her kisses him to shut him up. And a part of her kisses him because she loves him too.

**##**

His eyes were down but confident somehow. It was like it didn't hurt him anymore, when she left. And she was about to leave again – except this time she gave him the benefit of saying goodbye. He was wearing the same beanie he came to London in. She would have liked to touch his hair one more time, though.

When they first call her flight, he gives her his crooked smile and she thinks of all the things she never said to him, and of all the things he had said so many times in the last twenty-four hours.

"Stay safe, yeah?" it's all he asks for, hugging her tightly with his neck buried on her hair. Serena feels like she should give him something more than that. Something she should have said a long time ago.

"I did come back for you", she says when they part. He frowns, confused, hand still on her waist. "From Paris. I came back for you."

"What?"

"You were my choice. But then there was Juliet holding your hand and Colin and Ben and Dan and… I don't know. When you finally came to me I was convinced for the life of me I wanted Dan again because he didn't choose anyone else."

She's nervous, but her eyes are dry. She has never been as sure of something before as his eyes get brighter for the same reason he repeated over and over when they were showering together.

"Serena…"

"Just… I'm not asking you to wait around for me. Please, don't wait for me. I don't know when I'll be back, _if _I'll be back. I don't know what is gonna happen, or who I'll meet along the way, and it's more than fair that you live your life. But just. I'm–"

He grips her arms with both hands, getting her to look at him straight in the eye, shakes his head – "No, no, I won't make this mistake again, Serena. If you tell me there's the slightest chance of…"

She touches his face for a moment. "I made you a promise once. I said that if I found myself, we'd have a real chance. And the only thing I _can_ tell you now is that I'm going to. I'm going to find myself."

**##**

When the plane takes over, she turns off her phone and doesn't turn it on anymore. Although her lips were still sore from all the kisses Nate had given her, and although she could feel the exact places in her body where he had bitten and licked her, she knew it was time to finally do what she set herself to do so many years ago.

So she sells her iPad and gives all the money earned to a man in the streets; buys a paper notebook and several colorful pens. She doesn't intend to become a _writer _(wouldn't it be odd) but she does like to scribble song lyrics and to draw simple things like flowers.

Serena spends three weeks in Thailand, and the whole time is about giving all away. Way too expensive high heels and couture clothing; pieces of cheap jewelry and all that make-up she didn't want to wear anymore. She devotes her time mainly to the sun, riding a bike in the city and talking to people in the great markets.

Somchai cooks fish and shrimps – he speaks fairly good English for dealing with tourists every day and even though he was about thirty years older, Serena takes him as her first friend in that journey. He teaches her about Buddha and peace of mind, takes her to the temple in his free time so she can take pictures. He also invites her for lunch in his humble house with his six kids. They call her _Anong_. It means _beautiful girl. _She gets a tattoo with this name in her ankle.

In Sydney, she cuts her hair shoulder length. It's she shortest she's ever rocked and even though it feels weird – her nose is way too big all of sudden and her collarbones way too pointy – it's also very fitting for the Australian summer. She remembers a song that talks about _short skirts_ and writes it down with a bright green pen.

She runs a lot. She thinks _jogging_ is the appropriate word. She's never been healthy or anything, except for that brief time in California, but it feels really nice to spend some energy when the sky and the sea have almost the same color. She digs her toes in the Pacific and thinks about how much she always loved the Ocean. How infinite and scary and pretty it felt.

She's happy. She thinks so.

**##**

She writes down all the sad songs that reminded her of Dan during her flight. She doesn't cry or listen to them. It just feels right to think about him, though, when the plane lands in Santiago, the city they never visited together.

It's not ski season yet, but Serena rents a hotel room in the mountains. It's very sunny, chilly though – the autumn's just starting – and she buys an oversized woolen jumper, wears it with jeans and comfy boots. She walks around a lot, practices her Spanish with locals, who are always really nice with thick black hair that makes her think about Chuck.

She decides to call him, not giving too much thought about it. Maybe she missed him somehow – maybe she wanted to tell him she still didn't think he was right about her – maybe she wanted to talk to Henry and Blair would just ask too many questions.

He answers after six tunes and sounds annoyed by something. "If you're calling because you're _concerned_, sis, I'm fine, thank you very much. I do have a lot to do, though; the amount of papers is unbelievable, isn't it?"

Serena frowns, a half-smile on her lips. "Do I even know what are you talking about?"

"Well, don't you? You have experience on getting divorced; maybe you thought you could share it with me?"

**##**

When Blair shows up at her hotel room door, Serena thinks she might slam it on her face. She feels _so angry_. But she also doesn't feel anything at all. It's clear. It's clear that she's wearing Dan's love all around her shoulders and that he promised to be there if things went down badly.

Without even noticing, she's standing on the other side of the room, and they're screaming at each other like they were sixteen years old, and Serena is seriously considering _throwing _something at her head.

"So you decided it was okay to hide it from your best friend?!"

"I wasn't hid– don't you even start! You went on another _self-knowledge _trip and you're probably just sleeping around like you always fucking do and you think you can –"

"I'm not sleep– Even if I was! Maybe I'm sleeping around because _you stole my husband_, how about that?! Did you have an affair?! Were you fucking him behind my back to get revenge for something I did ten years ago?!"

"Dan and I would never– How could you even think that–"

"I have _Chuck _to break the news and then you come all the way to fucking Chile to tell me that _my marriage_ was nothing but a bump in the road of your love story! What am I supposed to think?"

"That maybe it was a bump in the road of _your _story too! Can't you look at things this way? I'm not trying to get revenge here, S. I'm just wishing to live something that I interrupted years ago because I was terrified. We're not sixteen anymore. Why would I change my entire life just to hurt you?"

_Because you take everything from me._

Serena breathes in deeply. She can feel the tears in her eyes but they won't fall down. She thinks about the last time she really cried and how Nate's arms were around her and how the water ran down the bridge of her nose when he told her he loved her so much. So. So. So much.

_No. Not everything._

"I'm really sorry that I wasn't the one to tell you", Blair starts after some moments of silence, the ground between them feeling a little more even. "Can I fix it somehow?"

Serena exhales, shakes her head a little bit, trying to think about something that could be said. Nothing would ever change the facts and she's pretty scared that she needs to deal with _them_ for the rest of her life, but somehow she thinks she's strong enough.

"Just… Just be happy. And just make him happy. You were born to do it."

A tear falls from Blair's huge brown eyes. Serena gives her a weak smile. It's enough. It's fine.

**##**

Serena comes back to New York one week before Henry's birthday. She could think of all the excuses in the world – it's the first birthday since their parents' divorce; Blair could use the support even though she doesn't deserve it; her presence might prevent Chuck from doing something horrible in front of his son – but it doesn't matter. Things are different. _She_ is different. Maybe that's her final test.

She stares at the city lights from her taxi's window, leans back; breathes in. She's been there, at the exactly same spot, feeling the exactly same thing. It's coming back from boarding school all over again, somehow.

**##**

Her old apartment, the one she shared with Dan in Brooklyn, is untouched when she opens the door. Even the cushions are in the same position. His cooking books still in the kitchen shelves, waiting to be opened. What used to be his drawers and cabinets are still empty. She falls asleep in their old bed without having to drink anything.

The next morning, she calls a maid to help her with cleaning; opens all the windows for air and light; packs things he left behind in a box. It's nothing major: a couple of books he'd probably like to have back, plain white shirts that came from dry-cleaning after he left; a notebook with all sorts of doodles, plot ideas and princesses with brown hair; the pair of yellow framed sunglasses he wore in their honeymoon.

The maid helps her unpack. Slowly, the drawers and cabinets become hers again – completely messy and _schizophrenic, _really, all the kind of stuff she brought from around the world making no sense at all together. Her old clothes are replaced with new ones; less labels, more colors and textures, less black. The magnet Nate gave her for Christmas goes to the fridge's door. It makes her smile.

She has plans to repaint the walls one day. Maybe get them all white so she can write and draw on them whenever she wants. She wouldn't come back to the Upper East Side – Dan did leave her with a part of him and it was a good thing – but the place was hers, now. And as much as he didn't think she was book material, Serena knows that she'll find something different about herself in every page she turns.

**##**

It's weird to walk into the Waldorf's penthouse to find Dan seating in the living room. It would be weird in any situation, she thinks. He looks neater and healthier, even wearing plaid pajamas' bottoms and a worn white t-shirt; slim framed glasses, his hair the right place. He looks surprised but smiles softly, getting up to welcome her.

Holding him is not nearly as painful as she ever thought it would be, but it's also not unnoticed. Her heart beats a little faster, just like it would forever, but he's living under Blair's roof and it's written all over his face how in love he is with that fact. She points the box she brought with his things – he thanks, a little uncomfortable, and she knows that the ground between them is rutted, but not completely ruined.

"You're looking good. Very tanned, I guess, was it sunny in Santiago? I mean, this time in the year… And the shorter hair is nice, but I guess I'm just rambling as per usual", he tries to break the ice. Serena giggles, feels less tense.

"It's what you do for a living."

"I guess", he smiles, too. "Listen, I know that things have changed a lot between us. But still–"

"I know", she interrupts him before he talks too much. There will come a time when she will accept better that he just _isn't_ her right guy. She knows that. She will also accept that they've both loved each other very much, and what happened was no _failure_. It might take a while, but it will happen. Sink or swim, right? They sank. She will accept it. "I just need to get more comfortable with the whole thing, you understand? And I really need you both to respect that."

"I do", it's the second time he says these words to her. He means them, this time. She holds her breath for a moment. "I understand that... It seems like I've moved on _very_ fast, but…"

It gets her stomach burning a bit – the burn that always came with Dan's voice in that tone, somehow – but there are no tears in her eyes. It actually makes her grin. "You never moved on, Dan."

He knows what she's talking about. He avoids her eyes, crossing his arms; he would seem disappointed with himself except he wasn't. Blair was the love of his life. It was only fair that he finally got what he wanted. The one thing he always wanted.

Serena turns around to leave. He gets a hold of her when she's about to get inside the elevator. If only they had given up the first time around.

"I'm sorry, Serena", he says in a quiet, honest voice. "For not being what you wanted me to be."

She smiles softly as the door closes between them.

Truth is she's not that sorry anymore.

**##**

_Psycho Killer, qu'est que c'est? _is the first thing Serena writes with a bright blue crayon on her newly white painted walls.

******##**

_Where's Nate?,_ she almost asks Blair on a Sunday afternoon. Henry and Dan are throwing balls around. It's weird to spend time with them – _them_, as in their new family, no purple bow-ties; no _magnetism_ and no writer blocks – but she forces herself to get used to it. It's how it's gonna be from now on.

She looks at Dan pretending to suck at basketball just to make Henry happy – and hell, Henry looks like Chuck so much it's almost disturbing – and thinks about how neither of them ever really wanted a baby together and how that should have been their first sign.

Serena doesn't ask Blair anything; and no one ever mentions him. She doesn't Google his name or tries his old phone number. She doesn't talk about with anyone because people would think that she's trying to get back at the two people that chose each other over her.

It takes her twelve weeks to step onto a train; white tank top, jeans and red flats on, her hair braided carelessly. She reads Gatsby for the sixth time, not paying much attention; she does a coat of clear nail polish when she's bored, and it dries as quickly as it could.

No one answers the bell, so she sits on the entrance steps and waits.

**##**

She waits for a long time.

People pass on by without noticing her there; some do, like a senior walking his dogs (they are the ones who notice her, really) or two little kids walking a few steps ahead from their mom. A resident, a nice old lady, asks her if she's forgotten her keys; she smiles, answers that she's waiting for someone. A police car drives by unhurriedly, and the police man looks at her before deciding she's not worth spending time on. A man warns her that it might rain soon – she thanks and stays on the same place.

Once upon a time, Serena has waited for Nate.

She anticipated the moment he would let go of Blair's hand and hold hers. She would literally _long_ for a minute of his time, for being alone with him even if just for a few moments. After the Shepherd Wedding, she couldn't bring herself to look in the mirror, but she expected a call (even though she changed her number); maybe an e-mail. She made up dialogues in her mind, she looked at the door and hoped that he would be bursting in there, taking her away. It was an elusive nervousness that followed her wherever she went and that she learned how to cope with, how to ignore it.

The few months they were boyfriend and girlfriend (and not best friend and boyfriend, and not best friends, and not best friends with benefits) she would draw random things with her index finger in his back while he was deeply asleep; writing what she could never say out loud. She would kiss his neck and face and would wait for him to wake up. She would sometimes feel the urge to cry when he didn't answer her last text fast enough and she never knew why, and his answer was never exactly what she expected them to be, but they all made her smile.

She had four different affairs, _that_ summer in Paris, dated them all at the same time, and established a whole schedule. Blair teased her about not being able to find a pattern and after a whole bottle of wine, all she could answer her friend was that the only thing they had in common was that they were not him.

It doesn't rain and she stays in the same place, watches the sun go down; wonders if he'll ever get home, wonders if he's even in Washington. She probably should have called. Maybe it's not his address anymore. Maybe he moved in with a new girlfriend, with a _fiancée_, who knows.

_If you're out, you're out_, he said one day. And she gave up on them more than once. She asked him to move on. She didn't make any promises.

It would only be fair he never showed up.

Except...

**##**

Nate traces the outline of her body with his fingertips. He touches her gently, like she's made of glass. Like she's something fragile, something to be protected. Something to spend time on. He touches her like he was writing a book.

She rubs the tip of her nose in his neck, breathing his scent in for a moment. He smiles. She feels it against her cheek, his lips lingering for a while on her face.

"I…", she wants to say something. She needs to. Needs to tell him that she was almost giving up, almost going back home. That she thought he was just another person walking by, warning her it was going to rain soon. That when she looked up, the sunshine painted his hair auburn; and that his eyes were greenish and his mouth was slightly opened; that he believed she was nothing but a hallucination and that the last thing he ever said to her in London's airport echoed in her ears every single day for the past months.

She needs to tell him that she might never really find herself, but that's okay. That she hasn't slept with anyone else since him, that all the times she touched herself it was him she was thinking of. That she could still feel him burning inside her from minutes before, and that she would replay in her mind, for the rest of her life, the eager kiss he gave her in his front door, without asking anything, without waiting for any explanation, without warning.

"You?" he asks quietly, planting a small kiss on her cheek, and then another one closer to her lips.

"I… I asked you not to… Wait for me", she kisses him in the mouth, pressing his lower lip between hers and teasing it with the tip of her tongue. Nate brings her closer, tighter, both arms around her; he breathes in heavily, one of his hands going up her spine for a moment.

She opens her eyes before he does, and can't help biting her bottom lip to the sight of him waiting with his eyes closed, lips slightly parted, still savoring her taste in his mouth. Nate touches her face then, holds it with one hand, his thumb caressing her cheek. He opens his eyes a little bit before speaking.

"But of course I did", their noses touch. "I don't know how to do anything else, baby."

She feels her eyes wet while she gets lost in his gaze. There's nothing much she could do, after all. There they were. Maybe words weren't their thing. Maybe he wouldn't write a whole book about her. But it did feel a bit like a romance novel, after all.

"Will you stay with me, then? Will you give me a chance?"

He just kisses her, because it's the first time Serena ever asks him this. It's also the last.

**##**

Nate helps her pick new curtains for her apartment when the sun starts shining bright again. They're yellow like the crayon she borrowed him when they first spoke to each other and when the sunlight comes, the whole place looks like a sunflower field.

She kisses him repeatedly when he leaves to Washington, every Sunday night. Sometimes, there are tears in her eyes and it feels ridiculous, knowing he'll be back by Thursday – it's the times he smiles the most, though.

_I'll miss you _is a must for every goodbye. _I love you_ is what she says once, very quickly, so quietly she's not sure he's even heard it, because the rain must have blaffed it. Nate doesn't leave, that day. He kisses her fiercely and takes her back to Brooklyn and they make love in the elevator, his damp hair twisting around her fingers.

**##**

It's the first really warm day of the year and they're in the Hamptons for the weekend. Dan is near, watching Henry in the swimming pool while Blair is preparing some presumptuous cocktails and ranting with Nate about Chuck's new girlfriend, _a complete brainless slut_, according to her, and _fine_, according to him. He makes a face the brunette can't see, and Serena giggles, going back to the magazine she's been flicking through.

"I've never seen you like this before", Dan's voice gets her attention. It's weird that he has a ring around his finger that it's not theirs; it's weird that they get to sleep in the same house but not in the same room; it's weird that he's taking care of Blair's son like it had been his; but it's not bad. It's just strange.

She frowns. "What do you mean?"

"Happy. Steady. No running away thoughts."

"How do you know I'm not having any?" she teases.

Serena looks at the profile of her first boyfriend, that glanced away to check on Henry while thinking about his answer. Down the wet curls on his head and the curve of his nose, she thinks that she forgives him. For loving her best friend more than he'd ever love her; for never writing books about her; for never wanting that baby that she also didn't want. She thinks she forgives Blair for taking everything from her without meaning it; for being the worst and the best thing that ever happened to her. She forgives them for being right for each other and wrong for her.

She looks away for a second, catching a glimpse of Nate adding more vodka to one of Blair's cocktails. Thinks about all the things she wanted from him, all the things she could finally give him. About how _right _that felt. Thinks about all the blue skies they would share together and whatever else. A house, yellow curtains, maybe a family. A life.

"You're just not."

Serena smiles softly at his answer. It's June and she doesn't feel restless at all.

**##**

**the end.**

please review (:

(ah, para aqueles esperando por O e decepcionados com essa atualização, bom. está vindo. só é mais difícil do que vocês imaginam. hahahaha)


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